That's What I'm Waiting For, Aren't I?
by Mel like Mellow
Summary: "Before that, we had made a wish that we would be missed if one or the other just did not exist." Violet has a funeral. There's angst. There's interaction. These characters are pretty and make me sad. Hints of Violet/Tate. Spoilers through 1x12.
1. we treat mishaps like sinking ships

**Author's Note:**

**Spoilers** through 1x12.

Okay, so, I'm depressed over the season finale of AHS. Who isn't? I've been thinking of something like this since the big reveal about Violet's death, and fanfiction seems like the best form of grief counseling for fandom, haha. So, here it is. Haven't written for these characters, so I don't know if I'm spot on with characterization or not. The flow of the fic is different in each part, because I wrote it over the span of a few days.

I just wanted to do something for this fandom, because it is such a great effing show and Tate is awesome (even though he shouldn't be) and Violet is just the bee's knees. Everyone else is cool too.

Yeah. So. Hope you enjoy! Review, or don't, no pressure. I'm gonna go weep some more.

OH. And the song lyrics I use are form Modest Mouse's "Little Motel" which was ridiculous fitting for what I was going for here. Kay. Bye.

* * *

><p><strong>that's what i'm waiting for<strong>

_we treat mishaps like sinking ships_

It didn't take long.

Or maybe it took longer than it should have.

No sooner had the final glimmer of light fled Ben's eyes, Constance had swooped in, assessed the situation, laid claim to her golden-haired angel (leaving Hayden seething and gurgling curses in the basement), and made that central phone call to the police department all in under two hours. It was almost rather impressive; Violet had a sneaking suspicion the woman had a plan all along, and she was unsure of whether she should feel unsettled by that or not.

They could hear her in the kitchen, talking in swift and hushed tones, affecting a sob catching in her throat as she regaled whoever was on the other end of the line with this terribly tragic story's end.

Violet maneuvered carefully into the kitchen to watch her, and when Constance caught her eye, the woman provided what could only be considered an affectionate, if not pitying, look. She nudged her cigarette purse with pristine fingertips toward the younger girl with a knowing nod, still all Academy Award-winning actress over the phone. A final sniffle of farewell, and she placed the receiver back into its cradle with a haughty smile.

She hummed as Violet clicked the Bic to life, dabbing at the corners of her eyes to wipe away any evidence of her charade, and she squinted at the flickering orange tip of the freshly lit cigarette. "Now, pray tell, child: where are _you_?"

"Uh … right here?" Violet deadpanned with her hand fanning out as reference.

Constance fingered a cigarette out for herself and smirked around the filter. "I meant your body, dear. I know you have to be stashed somewhere around this lot, seeing as your parents had no clue that you had passed through this, our living world."

Violet hesitated at the woman's confidence in her assumption, and Constance's leer softened as she lit the cigarette perched between her lips. Her hand skimmed across the counter to fold over Violet's smaller, colder palm. "I told them you ran away with the baby. It's imperative for me to find out where you are, to keep you hidden, so things can work out for the best. We don't need any more trouble."

The girl withdrew from the woman, and Constance responded in kind with a scowl. "Wait, are you saying you're taking him?"

"Well, of course," Constance scoffed, with the tinkle of a laugh and a plume of smoke exiting directly into Violet's face. "What, would you rather I leave him here, in this house of horrors? This is no place for a baby, Violet. Even your darling mother, may her soul find some peace at last, agrees with me on this point. There are evil things here; things that may wish to do that beautiful child harm—"

"You wanna be a little more specific?"

Constance's eyes snapped toward her and, if Violet weren't mistaken, there was the barest tremor at her lips. "You know, girl. You know very well of what I speak." Her eyes switched throughout the room, hitting every pane of glass and empty doorway. "Don't make this any harder than it has to be."

Long fingers curled around the purse as she prepared to leave, but Violet reached forward to snatch out two more paper sticks. She waved them back at Constance, who looked torn somewhere between amused and indignant at the young girl's daring. "Just to tide me over, 'til you bring me more," Violet replied with arched brows as she twirled to make her exit.

Constance's voice hit her back, echoing in the lonesome home. "Are you gonna tell me where I might find you, or do I have to search this whole godforsaken acre?"


	2. i don't want to be out to drift

**that's what i'm waiting for**

_and i know that i don't want to be out to drift_

There wasn't a swarm, a brilliant show of red-and-blue strobe lights illuminating the spacious yard, as Violet had envisioned. When the cops turned up, it was a quiet reveal, with two officers slipping in through the front door.

Ben's body still dangled high above the foyer. The baby was missing. So was the teenage daughter. It appeared to them like Gracious Next Door Neighbor's story was checking out.

But the cops were creeped out (Violet assumed someone was lurking, unseen even to her) and they only made a hurried inspection of the property before vacating with their reports clenched tightly in their fists. She wasn't surprised; it's not like they ever did much good while the family was living, why would they take any more care after they all had passed?

The coroner arrived later that afternoon to retrieve her father's corpse, and she watched, mesmerized, at the bottom of the stairwell as they struggled to release him.


	3. i can see it in your eyes,

**that's what i'm waiting for**

_well, i can see it in your eyes, like i taste your lips_

It wasn't more than a day before a few extended relatives were ushered into the home, all decked out in their funereal best, to sort through the personal effects that were left behind. Violet's cousins sifted through her music and clothes and desks and shelves with the candor of children unsupervised in a toy store, all the while commentating upon her memory.

She was happy she had been paranoid before and taken necessary steps to remove anything their greedy little hands might really want.

"Douchebags," she muttered, sneering as they pitched the unwanted cds and pictures to the floor and they grumbled about her apparent lack of taste. "That's my shit!"

She considered revealing herself unto them. It was a dull consideration, not one she'd at all act upon. She had promised her mother, after all. But it was infuriating, to see these people who didn't even really know or give a fuck about her rooting through her remains like she was yesterday's garbage. It was disgraceful, and rude. And her ineffectiveness began to fill her with a sulleness, and she really hated that almost more than anything.

Lamps perched around her room all shattered simultaneously, and Violet herself even startled at the sharpness of it. Her cousins screamed and ducked amid each other and, sufficiently spooked by the situation and what they had already gleaned from their parents about this place, vanished from the room in little time.

Violet looked around for the source, but there was no other being - ghoul or otherwise – shown to her.

But she knew. The gratitude was at the tip of her tongue, but she just couldn't bring herself to utter a word into the emptiness. Instead, she knelt at the floor to collect her belongings, taking unnecessary care to neaten her room back to its previous state, as that hovering feeling lingered over her shoulders.


	4. we're better than this

**that's what i'm waiting for**

_they both tell me that we're better than this_

"How long have you been down there?"

Vivien's hands were soft over Violet's steepled ones as she enveloped her daughter's smaller digits and drew them across the island, closer to her body. Violet shrugged, ignoring the dampness that sprung into her eyes. She counted up an idle estimate of the weeks gone by and cringed under the realization.

"I guess, like, a month?" At Vivien's light inhalation, Violet took the opportunity to disengage herself from her mother's hands. "Something like that. I don't know. We've been kind of preoccupied." It was a pointed statement, but her mother seemed distracted already.

"Well, we just… we have to get you out of there," Vivien nodded, tone of voice suggesting she was speaking more to herself than to her daughter. "We have to. You can't stay down there. You just can't."

"Mom, it's okay," Violet shook her head. "I don't—"

"No, Violet." Mother was stern and certain. "It isn't right. You deserve better than that." Vivien had rounded the counterspace, now just beside her child. She extended a hand to cup Violet's chin, the pad of her thumb stroking a loving mark there. "This isn't about me, or your father. I want this for you."

Violet steeled herself against the rise, and she stepped away from her mother, before the beading tears could fall. "Fine, fine, okay," Violet fisted her hands around her sleeve ends. "But I don't want you and dad to see me."

"Violet—"

"No, mom, I'm serious. I don't—you guys don't need that. I'll get it, and we can do … y'know, whatever you guys want in the yard or whatever." Violet rolled her eyes, dazed and annoyed at the conversation's exchange. Was this really fucking happening right now? Were they really talking about this?

Gaze averted, Violet still felt her mother's tear-softened smile nearing as she pressed a tender kiss to her temple. "Do you want anything? To carry, I mean…?"

"Uhm," Violet screwed her eyes shut, trying to muddle her way through the very idea of what her mother was suggesting. "Shit, I don't know, mom. That… quilt, I guess."

"The … one from Grandma Mary?"

She nodded.

"Okay," Vivien observed her child and sighed heavily, tired. "I think it's in the attic."


	5. we trade tit for tat, like that for this

**that's what i'm waiting for**

_we trade tit for tat, like that for this_

The basement was different, somehow, now that the house was empty of living prey. Violet still felt the presence of everyone else in the walls surrounding her, but it wasn't as strong as it had been when she was a real, breathing girl. It didn't strain and push outward to reach her, it didn't call out her name as a hiss in the night. She supposed it was because she was part of it now, though the thought made her stomach flip-flop.

She faced the crawlspace door, her chapped lip snagged under her teeth as she contemplated how she was to go about this. She had no idea what to expect beyond that small door, what her old self looked like now. Memories of the early decay swamped her senses, and her body trembled upon recollection.

"What are you doing?"

Her hair stood on end, even before his first breath, and it was a tumultuous array of emotions that tumbled within her at the very notion of his presence and proximity. She permitted him her profile, and it was almost too much to see him there, all real boy with blonde swath of unruly hair and fucking looking at her all broken like that. She was sad and she was angry and she was hurt and she was lonely and how could she just stand there and look at him?

"What are you doing here? I told you to go away."

"Are you getting your body?" His voice was quieted just so by the furious waves radiating off of her. He kept his chin ducked and his eyes hidden under curly fringe. "I heard your mom and dad—"

"Yeah, okay, you need to stay away from them," Violet warned with a threatening pivot in his direction. She brandished her flashlight at him with a snarl. "Stay away from my mom. And I want you to stay away from me."

Tate bowed his head, and Violet could easily spot the glistening on his cheeks that, aware to her a little belatedly, matched her own. She swiped irritably with her sleeve at her cheeks.

As his shoulders shook vaguely, and she couldn't decide between pity and fury at the pathetic sight he was made up of now.

"Stop it, Tate," she reprimanded him, caught in the middle. He straightened his spine, but his head stayed low. "Just … stop, okay?" Her voice hitched in exhaustion, and for half a second, she reevaluated this stance against him. How do people carry such grudges? Her hand skirted through her long locks, unknotting a tangle in its journey, and she opened her eyes upon him again. "Look, I guess I could use your help."

"Anything," he was breathless just off the end of her words, and he took a step toward her. "Whatever you need."

She swallowed the lump in her throat that grew at his earnest eyes and hopeful twitch at his lips. Her thumb jerked over her shoulder. "Help me get my body out of there. I can't get it alone, I don't think, and I don't want my parents to see it, okay?"

Tate frowned but nodded regardless. As his converse shifted another step closer, Violet took one back from him, her flashlight held protectively to her breast. "Wait. Let me be clear - this doesn't make anything better between us, Tate. As soon as we get it, I want you out of my sight. Do you got that?" He nodded again, haunted eyes searching her face for any sign of mercy, but he was provided with none.

Violet built up her wall and grit her teeth, turning from him. "Let's just get this over with."


	6. i don't think there's an insult missed

**that's what i'm waiting for**

_and i don't think there was an insult that was missed_

The smell hadn't completely dissipated yet, but somehow it really didn't bother her all that badly as it had before. She tried not to contemplate upon it for long.

Her body, wrapped tight in a homely quilt, hit the cement of the basement floor with a muffled thumping noise, and she grimaced as half the blanket fell open.

Violet slipped back down and turned to face the portal to the crawlspace, to find her companion, but to his credit, Tate had vanished – just as she had asked him to.

She wasn't sure if she should be grateful. The stinging in her eyes and the burning in her chest told her otherwise.

But the door behind her creaked and she whipped around with a gasp she'd deny as hopeful, though it died in the air before it had a chance to sound.

Constance canted her head at the spectacle before her, the unraveling corpse of the same pretty girl who stood and stared vacantly above it. The woman's mouth turned up bitterly, and she met Violet's tentative gaze with a cool look.

"Well, your family just keeps on giving and giving," she drawled and sauntered closer. Another glance was spared to the body half-concealed between them, and Constance swallowed. "My, you've been down here a while, haven't you?"

"A month," Violet heard herself say. "I think."

"Who put you down here?"

"Who do you think?" The response was quicker than she realized. Constance appeared startled by it.

The woman clutched at her collar and huffed quietly. "Tate didn't do this to you?" It sounded something half-statement, half-query.

"I did this to me." Off Constance's surprise, Violet shrugged, and she looked down upon her shell. "I …" The sentence wilted, as she lacked a proper explanation. She felt it was an accident; she never wanted this. She shook her head, cleared her throat. "Tate didn't do this."

Seemingly relieved and satisfied enough, Constance made a flourish with her hands. "So, then what are we to do with it now?"

"My mom wants to have some kind of gay funeral thing or something. She doesn't want to keep it down here—"

"Obviously not! They try to sell this property again and a home inspector checks underneath these floorboards, then all of this goes to shit. No, we'll do as your mother wishes, and we'll give you a proper burial." Constance smiled, almost dreamily. "How about under those lovely rosebushes beneath your window?"

"I don't give a shit where you put it," Violet snapped, and Constance withdrew. "This is for my mom. I just want to get this bullshit over with and get back to doing my nothing forever."

"Well, then," Constance arched a brow and nodded at the carcass between their feet. "After you."


	7. i'm very sorry

**that's what i'm waiting for**

_i'm very sorry_

Ben had the hole dug before she and Constance had risen from the basement with the swathed cadaver, and thankfully, he was out of sight when they tipped it almost unceremoniously into the space. Constance offered some brusque sympathies and was off with no second glance back. Violet was glad for it; she didn't think Constance deserved to be there.

Dusk is settling now as they all stand around the fresh soil beneath her bedroom window, an uprooted and replanted rosebush as her marker.

She kind of likes that it's at night. It's different; she doesn't think she's ever heard of a nighttime funeral.

It's quiet, definitely quieter than she remembers it being in a long time. It's her parents and Moira and probably some unvoiced, invisible spectators that have no right to stand at the foot of her grave, but she'll let them, because what else are they supposed to do?

"Violet," her father's hoarse voice calls to her from around her mother's stoic form. "Would you like to say something?"

Violet can tell he's crying. She knows her mother's crying too. But she shrugs, as unfeeling and as empty as the day she first saw what she used to be and what it had become now.

And somehow, it begins to bubble up into a whisper. "I guess that … I'm sorry. I'm sorry to both of you. For what I did. For this, and before it." She shudders, involuntary, and her arms go about her torso, and her cheeks feel wet suddenly. "I really … I didn't mean it." Her voice breaks and tears fall. She looks away, above, to the half-moon that is unspectacular and not at all poetic. It's almost unsympathetic in its normalcy. Violet hitches her breath and tries to calm the billowing feeling in her chest. "I don't know why it happened, or what I could've done to change it. But I didn't mean it. And I just want you guys to know that. I swear I didn't mean it."

Her mother quakes beside her, and Ben's arm encircles Vivien's shoulders comfortingly. "We know, honey," he hushes, an effort to abate both their soundless shaking. And it's the only verbal exchange between the family, their bond somehow stronger now than it ever could've or would've been before this, all in understanding and all in completeness with each other.

Vivien's fingers reach out and stretch between Violet's, and she gives a loving squeeze to the mirrored hand, and Violet only nods in muted response.

Her other, empty hand feels abruptly fuller now, as deft yet unseen fingers lace unwarranted with her own. And she grips at those too, knowing, and finding comfort there, although she knows she shouldn't. But even still, she clutches back and cries with her family and lets him cry with her, because it's her ending, and it's okay, because he didn't do this to her and he had held her once and tried to save her.

When this is over and the next morning comes, they'll all start anew and begin their new normal. But for now, Violet allows herself to mourn the conclusion of her old life, unsure and, yes, afraid of what's to come after, now.


End file.
